International Journal of Consumer Studies最新文献

The recent interest of marketers in adopting masstige strategy is a testimony to its potential. But, the dialogue on masstige among research community is not befitting its requirement. This special issue was launched to address this pressing demand towards masstige research. This special issue serves the masstige theory with eight rigorous research papers covering utmost relevant varied aspects of masstige. Papers in this special issue establish the relevance of masstige strategy for hitherto less explored aspects like services, old-age consumers, short- and long-term happiness, and so forth. Novel insights are offered along with future research propositions for masstige research. Our aim of this special issue is well addressed by generating and advancing interest of scholars towards masstige and thereby extending the current horizons of masstige research.

Contextualized in health care service, the authors contribute to service experience theory and practice in three important ways. First, by means of qualitative interviews with patients and health care providers (clinicians and professionals), the authors empirically show that digital technology (mobile application—“app” with its companion portal) can perform the roles of a service provider in health care experiences, identifying six key roles. Second, the authors illustrate how apps, as service providers, can potentially transform the health care experience, influencing the roles and forms of interactions with other actors in the service ecosystem. Third, a typology of roles and key functions highlighting interactions and impact of the app and portal on the health care experience is developed. Drawing on institutional logics and role theory, this article aims to provide new insights into service provider roles that are not confined solely to humans. Our goal is to show that apps can undertake a range of roles to enrich interactions and potentially enhance the health care experience. First, the authors provide evidence that an app can perform the roles of connector, coordinator, counselor, enabler, instructor, and watchperson, impacting on the roles of others in the service ecosystem and the health care experience. Then, guidelines to assist organizations in designing a service using an app as a service provider are offered, together with an agenda to guide future research.

This article examines digital virtual leisure and the impact of increasingly blurred boundaries between the digital and physical worlds on consumer self-narratives. Using an extended case narrative method, the present research explores how consumers who are highly involved with digital leisure live out their ideal self-narrative in online communities. The findings highlight a level of complexity and fluidity when consumers move between worlds. The present research shows a more multifaceted set of issues that consumers traverse when moving between the physical and digital worlds. This research indicates the changing nature of the self-narrative for consumers in an ever-evolving environment that blurs the distinction between the digital and physical worlds. Results suggest that the digital virtual world (those online environments using digital technologies and virtual which has a sensory element) can serve as a sanctuary for consumers to gain empowerment and sustain hope. Digital virtual leisure is a highly involved form of consumption layered with meaning for individuals. The findings highlight the potential and opportunity to use self-narratives as a way to understand consumer involvement with online community spaces so as to better respond to and engage with the consumer target market.

This research provides compelling evidence that consumer reactions toward symbolically incongruent brand behaviors depend on their level of self-brand connection. It challenges the conventional belief that high self-brand connection works as a protecting shield for brands and reveals that consumers with higher (vs. lower) self-brand connection react more negatively toward symbolically incongruent brand behaviors because they feel betrayed by the brand. The results unveil that a sense of betrayal can be incited, when a brand's behavior is symbolically incongruent with its established meaning. This pattern of consumer responses is consistent across four experimental studies, which involved a diverse sample of 563 participants from different countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain and used various product categories. The results consistently show that individuals with high self-brand connection display an increased intention to engage in negative word of mouth, along with a decline in their brand attitudes and purchase intentions, driven by feelings of betrayal. This effect is further intensified for consumers with higher self-enhancement need. It is worth noting that prior literature on betrayal has often linked such feelings to more significant transgressions and behaviors with immoral connotations.

This study demonstrates that consumers' perceptions of voice assistant device (VAD) elements promote psychological ownership and interface flow experience, resulting in satisfaction with, and loyalty toward VADs. To that end, this study collected VAD users in the United States and conducted structural equation modeling to empirically examine the relationships among the variables. The empirical findings indicated that perceived artificiality and intelligence had significant influences on psychological ownership and flow experience. In addition, the empirical results demonstrated that psychological ownership resulted in flow experience with VADs, significantly affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty toward VADs. Finally, customer satisfaction had a significant impact on loyalty. Based on the empirical findings, this study provided meaningful implications for marketing scholars and practitioners.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are a new form of ownership registration based on blockchain technology that allows digital assets to be exchanged with guarantees of ownership and originality of the artwork involved. This has boosted the trade of these assets and companies have been quick to incorporate NFTs into their marketing strategy, either with their own tokens or by collaborating with established companies in the metaverse. Building on the frameworks of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2), this study contributes to the literature by analysing the determinants of individuals' adoption of NFTs through two studies. Study 1 relies on qualitative interviews with technology insiders to provide initial insights into these determinants. Study 2 tests the hypotheses developed and compares the results between non-buyers and buyers in order to analyse the intention to purchase and repurchase NFTs. This study contributes to the UTAUT2 with two new individual-specific variables of interest for the adoption of this type of product: social capital, and the fear of missing out. Finally, this study concludes with guidelines for companies on how they can use NFTs in their marketing campaigns.

Consumers often rely on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) interaction as a source of information about brands. It helps them in making decisions about their purchases. This study aimed to assess electronic word of mouth and identifies its relationship with various brand characteristics. 279 research articles examining eWOM and brand relationship were systematically identified and extracted from Scopus-based and peer-reviewed literature. A bibliometric analysis was conducted on these articles using bibliometrix-R and VOSviewer. This review highlighted the most frequently cited and co-cited articles in the domain and evolution of research in the domain using the SPAR-4-SLR methodology. Additionally, based on the Antecedent–Decisions–Outcome (ADO) framework, a comprehensive review was done which highlighted the most-studied brand attributes as antecedents, decisions, and outcomes in the eWOM literature. This investigation revealed that the brand attitude was studied the most followed by brand image, brand engagement, and so forth. Further, the ADO framework is used to summarize this study's scholarly contributions, practical applications, and future research prospects. Furthermore, brand hate, authenticity, activism, congruence, and personality, co-creation, and identity were deduced as future trends in this domain.

Consumers prefer brands that provide them with symbolic meaning, and they use them to enhance their self-esteem and develop their status and personal images. Self-esteem is an important psychological factor that contributes to an individual's purchase intentions and consumption behavior, but its role in shaping the consumption of masstige brands has not been thoroughly researched. Hence, this research aims: (1) to identify the masstige brands in the smartphone industry of Pakistan using the masstige mean index, and (2) to explore the role of self-esteem in consumer consumption behavior grounded in terms of masstige, self-gifting behavior, and brand personality. Moreover, this study uses self-gifting behavior as the mediator and brand personality as the moderator in the relationship between self-esteem and masstige purchase intention. The data from study 1 (n = 560) and study 2 (n = 329) were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that masstige brand consumption is influenced by self-esteem; this relationship is mediated by self-gifting behavior, and brand personality moderates the association. Theoretically, this study contributes to the masstige theory by exploring the role of self-esteem in masstige consumption in an emerging economy. Practically, this study provides a comprehensive guideline for brand managers to devise effective marketing strategies to build their brands as masstige brands.

Beliefs play a prominent role in consumer attitudes toward technology. Hence, the interplay between affective and cognitive perceptions results in approach or avoidance behaviours. This study examines how phygital interactive in-store technologies are perceived in the specific context of luxury retail by providing a holistic picture of the characteristics consumers link to technological applications. Employing correspondence analysis, we highlight the contribution of the affective and cognitive dimensions of beliefs to technology evaluation, both in positive and negative terms. By differentiating between respondents who had already tried the technology and those who had not, the findings reveal how negative bias, derived from a lack of experience, results in negative evaluations; while previous usage of the technology positively impacts technology assessment. The results provide an outline of a valuable customer in-store experience enriched by phygital devices, showing how technology's distinct features attract consumers, and how these perceptions can be leveraged by the retailer to enhance the retail experience.

This systematic literature review (SLR) seeks to foster the presence of feminism and women's diversity in advertising through a systematic, transparent, and rigorous framework-based review and the 4Ws1H (What, Where, Why, and HoW) analysis. The study provides three main contributions. First, it offers an innovative conceptual framework for examining female stereotypes and female empowerment in advertising by categorizing the 21st-century literature into the four evolutive eras of feminism: prefeminism, feminism, postfeminism, and the fourth wave of feminism. Second, this SLR reveals prevailing research trends, predominant research methodologies, frequently explored geographical regions, and industries of focus while providing a roadmap for future research endeavors. Finally, it acknowledges the lasting impact of femvertising as a response to consumer demands during the fourth wave of feminism and its role in promoting diversity and inclusion in advertising, encompassing disabilities, ethnicity, age, and gender identity. The main research trends uncovered in this study encompass the effects of female stereotypes, the sexualization of women in advertising, attitudes related to the brand, and the exploration of female empowerment. Qualitative methodologies emerged as the dominant approach in this research landscape, with a particular focus on countries boasting high gender equality. Furthermore, industries that predominantly target women in their advertising campaigns, such as fashion, luxury apparel, beauty, and personal care, occupy a central position in the existing body of literature. These findings encourage scholars to embark on future research aligned with the proposed research trends, particularly in regions characterized by lower gender equality and within gender-neutral or male-dominated industries.